40 Fun Facts About Monmouth County, New Jersey

Which rock star, raised in Monmouth County's seat, titled his 1973 debut album after the shore city of Asbury Park?

Bruce Springsteen was born in a hospital in Long Branch, another Monmouth County shore city. His debut reached shops in January 1973 and made him a critical favorite well before it made him a star.

Sandy Hook Light, guiding ships into New York Harbor from Monmouth County, holds which record among U.S. lighthouses?

Oldest still working: the tower has shone since 1764, and during the Revolution it survived a Patriot attempt to wreck it so that British ships could not steer by it.

Which wounded president was carried by special train to Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1881 and died there?

James A. Garfield was sent to the shore in the hope that sea air and quiet would help him recover. Railroad ties laid to carry his train were later built into a tea house.

Which 1980s movie musical filmed its mansion scenes at Shadow Lawn, now part of Monmouth University?

Annie cast the house as the Warbucks residence. An earlier Shadow Lawn on the site, destroyed by fire, was Woodrow Wilson's summer White House during his 1916 campaign.

Which jazz bandleader, born in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1904, gave his name to the town's main theater?

Count Basie got his schooling in show business at a local theater, the Palace, where doing odd chores earned him free admission to the performances.

Shark attacks in Monmouth County's Matawan Creek in 1916 are often cited as an inspiration for which novel and film?

Jaws is set on Long Island, but several authors trace Peter Benchley's idea to that July, when a shark killed a boy and his would-be rescuer in a tidal creek far from the open sea.

Which folk heroine of the 1778 Battle of Monmouth has a New Jersey Turnpike service area named after her?

Molly Pitcher is most often identified as Mary Ludwig Hays, a water-carrier for the gunners that day. In 1928 the nickname was overprinted on a United States postage stamp.

Which Kevin Smith comedy was shot at night in the Leonardo, New Jersey, store where the director worked by day?

Clerks was first shot for $27,575, raised partly by selling off a comic book collection. Manning the register by day, Smith often slept no more than an hour.

Which Monmouth County borough began minting tin badges in 1929, becoming the first U.S. town to charge sea bathers?

Bradley Beach takes its name from James A. Bradley, the developer who also founded Asbury Park, the resort city a short way up the same coast.

In 1946, Army engineers at Camp Evans in Monmouth County became the first to bounce radar signals off what?

The Moon sent each pulse back about 2.5 seconds later. Project Diana, named for a Roman goddess, was the first experiment in radar astronomy and proved radio could cross the ionosphere.

Which borough, called Monmouth Court House when armies clashed there in 1778, is the seat of Monmouth County?

Freehold also has a place in cycling history: champion racer Arthur Zimmerman lived in the borough in the 1890s and ran a company there whose bicycles were known as the Zimmy.

The E Street Band is named for a street in which Monmouth County shore town, where it rehearsed in a garage?

Belmar was home to the mother of keyboardist David Sancious, who let the young band practice in the garage beside her house at 1107 E Street.

Which inventor demonstrated his wireless telegraph at the Twin Lights of Navesink in Highlands, New Jersey, in 1899?

Guglielmo Marconi picked a station used to firsts: the twin-towered beacon, perched 246 feet above the sea, was also the first American lighthouse to test a Fresnel lens.

A horn antenna in Holmdel, New Jersey, detected stray microwave radiation in 1965 that confirmed which theory?

The Big Bang left an afterglow that fills the universe, and Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson found it with an antenna built to bounce signals off balloon satellites. It won them a 1978 Nobel Prize.

Which workplace thriller series filmed the former Bell Labs complex in Holmdel as the headquarters of Lumon Industries?

Severance made a star of a building that an architecture magazine once called the biggest mirror ever. Eero Saarinen designed it, and it was his only work in New Jersey.

Laird & Company of Colts Neck, holder of America's first distillery license, is best known for which colonial spirit?

Applejack from the Laird family caught George Washington's attention: he asked for their recipe for cider spirits, and Robert Laird served under him in the Continental Army.

The Haskell Invitational is the marquee event at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, a venue for which sport?

Horse racing under the track's name dates to 1870, when the first course opened to draw summer tourists. In 2018 it became the first place in New Jersey to take legal sports bets.

Which English navigator, exploring for the Dutch in 1609, sighted the coast of today's Monmouth County near Sandy Hook?

Henry Hudson and his crew most likely spotted land off the sandy peninsula, though some accounts credit the landing to the bayshore at present-day Keansburg.

Which author of a classic Civil War novel lived for nine years in an Asbury Park house that is now a museum?

Stephen Crane wrote news reports on the resort as a young man. His famous novel, The Red Badge of Courage, was finished before he had any experience of battle.

Gunnison Beach on Sandy Hook is the only beach in New Jersey where what is legally permitted?

Nude sunbathing took hold after park visitors found the secluded stretch in the late 1970s. Despite a popular legend, it did not begin with skinny-dipping soldiers from the old Army garrison.

Monmouthshire, a historic county often named as the source of Monmouth County's name, lies in which country?

Wales is one of several theories. Others credit settlers linked to Rhode Island's Monmouth Society, or the Duke of Monmouth, who had many allies among the colony's leaders.

The Navy's Earle base runs a pier about two miles into Sandy Hook Bay so warships can safely load what?

Ammunition is handled far offshore to keep it at a safe distance from heavily populated areas. The base is named for Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, the Navy's ordnance chief in World War I.

Which future Hollywood star was voted class clown by the Class of 1954 at Manasquan High School in Monmouth County?

Jack Nicholson, known to his high school friends as Nick, grew up just up the shore in Neptune City.

Which Native American people, living in small family bands, inhabited Monmouth County before European settlers arrived?

The Lenape were hunter-gatherers, and two of their major trails crossed in what is now the western part of the county. Early relations with the newcomers were largely amicable.

Which bay lies between Monmouth County's northern shore and Staten Island, New York, opening east toward Sandy Hook?

Raritan Bay was a larder for centuries: large shell middens found around its shores show how heavily early inhabitants relied on it for food.

Until 1957, the Army post Fort Monmouth housed a breeding and training center for which animals?

Homing pigeons stayed on the Army's books until the service was discontinued, and the last birds were either sold at auction or donated to zoos.

Which Asbury Park music club, opened in 1974, helped launch Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes?

The Stone Pony took over a building that once housed a restaurant called Mrs. Jay's. When developers later targeted the city, musicians and patrons rallied to keep the club alive.

Which toll road's founding law led to the amphitheater in Holmdel, New Jersey, now called PNC Bank Arts Center?

Garden State Parkway drivers reach the venue at Exit 116. A noted modernist architect gave the open-sided theater a saucer-like roof resting on eight large concrete pillars.

Which American general was arrested and court-martialed after leading a retreat at the 1778 Battle of Monmouth?

Charles Lee was a former British officer once touted as a possible commander of the whole army. He was one of the last American officers to pull back, yet was cast as the villain before the day was out.

Which straight man of a famous film comedy duo was born into a show business family in Asbury Park in 1897?

Bud Abbott had the circus in his blood: his parents met as employees of Barnum and Bailey. He first took the foil's role himself when he could no longer afford to pay a performer for it.

Which sharp-tongued poet and founding member of the Algonquin Round Table was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1893?

Dorothy Parker went on to Hollywood, where she shared an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of the 1937 film A Star Is Born.

Which physicist lent his support to Jersey Homesteads, a New Deal colony for Jewish garment workers in Monmouth County?

Albert Einstein backed a cooperative of farm and factory that did not last through World War II. The borough was renamed Roosevelt in 1945, and artist Ben Shahn painted its story in a school mural.

Which country's plea saved a British officer chosen to die for the 1782 hanging of Monmouth militiaman Joshua Huddy?

France pleaded for Captain Asgill, a young officer who had drawn the short straw to die in retaliation. Executing him would have broken the surrender terms agreed after Yorktown.

Manasquan Inlet, on Monmouth County's southern edge, is the northern end of New Jersey's stretch of which boating route?

The Intracoastal Waterway's New Jersey segment runs 117.7 miles through canals and back bays to Cape May. The inlet once filled with sand so completely that people could cross it on dry ground.

Mount Mitchill in Atlantic Highlands, at 266 feet, is the highest headland on the U.S. East Coast south of which state?

Maine has the only taller headlands on the whole seaboard. The overlook above the bay is also the site of the county's memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks.

Which burning liner drifted ashore beside Asbury Park's Convention Hall in 1934 and became a tourist attraction?

Morro Castle was sailing from Havana to New York when fire broke out, and 137 people died. Sightseers could wade out and touch the hull, and stamped penny souvenirs and postcards were sold.

Karl Jansky, at Bell Labs in Holmdel in the early 1930s, launched radio astronomy by tracing radio waves to what source?

The Milky Way's emissions were caught on an antenna that turned on four Ford Model T wheels, a rig nicknamed Jansky's merry-go-round.

After its big guns were scrapped, Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook was reactivated in 1956 as a base for which missile?

Nike missiles stayed until 1974, and the site is one of the few left in the nation where both the launch and radar sections survive intact.

Monmouth County was established in 1683 as part of which colonial province, whose capital was Perth Amboy?

East Jersey lasted less than three decades. After years of disputes between residents and mostly absentee proprietors, it was merged with its western twin in 1702.

Spring Lake and its neighbors on the Monmouth County shore are nicknamed the Riviera of which nationality?

The Irish Riviera takes its name from the area's large Irish-American population. The borough's streets also stood in for turn-of-the-century Atlantic City in the 1981 film Ragtime.